Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/132



", Tom! What do you suppose that far-away rumble can be? Surely not thunder at this season of the year!"

The air service boys were standing on the platform of a small station, where they had been set down by the train from Paris. The track went no further, having been destroyed in some of the furious fighting that had taken place in that region since the days when the Germans, defeated along the Marne, made their famous "withdrawal" to the banks of the Aisne, where they had previously prepared great trench works.

The boys were far from being alone. Soldiers wearing the uniforms of various French sections of the army clustered in knots here and there, or sat philosophically waiting to be taken care of. They, too, were on their way to the front, and seemed to have the utmost confidence that in due time orders would arrive for them to take up the march along the road, to relieve some of the fighters who had